The current X reunion tour has all the makings of a gnarly nostalgia trip. And maybe it’s true that you can’t go home again, but when the band recently took the Cabaret Metro stage and launched into “The Hungry Wolf,” they proved it’s possible to at least drop in for a visit–not bad, considering they hit the scene well over a decade ago, in 1980. That year gets tagged as the start of the yuppie decade, the years when those of us who fell into the tail end of the baby boom were supposed to be raking it in hand over fist. This experience eluded me and most of the people I know, however. As an acquaintance recently said, our crowd spent those years scrambling around under the couch hunting up cigarette change.
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X stood out from the pack in lots of ways, most notably in its members’ singular stage personas. There was bassist and singer John Doe, tall, tattooed, and flat-topped. Musically he crossed punk with a country-blues sensibility, weaving through LA’s mean streets, with detours back to Bakersfield via Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Guitarist Billy Zoom was the quintessential punk glitterbilly, planted onstage with a freakish plaster smile he cultivated to the point of caricature, but always dead-on serious when it came to the playing. He delivered his raunchy rockabilly with a punk twist, giving a strong nod to the battering fretwork of Sex Pistol Steve Jones while accelerating vintage Link Wray licks into metallic overdrive. In the middle stood singer Exene Cervenka (later Doe’s wife, and still later ex-wife). Part street poet and part shrieking chanteuse, Cervenka came on like a punk Norma Desmond in her antique dresses, powdered face, and 50s Goldblatt’s jewelry. Drummer D.J. Bonebrake was the quiet one who backed it all up with thundering drums.
Lots of bands claim their lyrics are poetry, but X actually delivered the goods. Doe and Cervenka wrote songs about modern times on the harsh side of town, in their case Los Angeles. Like crime novelists from Raymond Chandler to current master James Ellroy, Doe and Cervenka illuminated their haunts, with their users and losers, in grotesque and beautiful terms. “There are no angels / There are devils in many ways / Take it like a man,” Cervenka sang in “The World’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss.” Doe and Cervenka were pessimists, but they were never wimps or whiners.
Given that image of a young band bravely testing the waters, the idea of a re-formed X seemed pretty dicey. Their new album, Hey Zeus!, is OK, but X in their prime were never just OK. Musically their new songs rock out for the most part, but there’s not much that hits the gut. The major beef is with the lyrics–overall they’re forgettable, but when they’re not it’s for the wrong reasons. The fairly standard political commentary on “Country at War” comes down on the liberal-lefty side (no surprise there), but the hackneyed observations supply neither answers nor the threat of insurrection. It’s correct, but it sure doesn’t cut.
But the band forged ahead despite Zoom’s absence. They wisely packed their set with old songs, but this never felt like a rundown of golden oldies. “White Girl” and “Nausea” were scorching. “Los Angeles” brought the house down, a full frontal bass-and-drum assault with Bonebrake hammering away and Doe, foot planted on his monitor, looming over the crowd. Cervenka strummed guitar on the rocking Dave Alvin-penned “4th of July.” In the face of such a rich past, most of the current stuff sounded like filler.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Ebet Roberts.
